Talking to Iran about Iraq?

#2
#2
In fairness, they were going to be an Iranian satellite anyway, eventually. Not that that's a desirable outcome, but its a lot better than our buddies from Syria and elsewhere taking over.

We tried to apply Western solutions to Arabic problems, and it blew up in our face, as expected.
 
#3
#3
YorkVol said:
So the Iranians actively fought and killed many US military in Iraq and actively worked against all of our efforts to stabilize the country, but now that things are falling apart, we're going to engage them in talks and ask for their help?

Are we really this incompetent?

Iraq crisis pulls in U.S. and Iran as militants capture more cities - CNN.com
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Engaging in direct talks ≠ asking for help

The two countries have a vested interest in a stable Iraq. It would be incompetent to leave anything off the table.
 
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#5
#5
Septic said:
Engaging in direct talks ≠ asking for help

The two countries have a vested interest in a stable Iraq. It would be incompetent to leave anything off the table.
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We are asking them for help. Set aside the fact that it is a slap in the face of all the men and women who died or were maimed by Iranian IEDs, this truly shows a distinct lack of strategic thought at our highest levels.

On the one hand, we've spent the last decade actively (and rightfully, imo) countering everything the Iranians have done to gain regional hegemony. We've demonized them in the media, acted directly or indirectly against their nuclear programs, placed trade embargoes against their oil and gas industries, etc, etc.

And now we are going to engage them in talks? To what end and with what expectation of success? Will we be surprised when they ask for the moon? Probably. What will it take for them to consider helping us? A couple of hundred pounds of refined uranium? Come on this option is neither feasible nor acceptable.

On the other hand, we are once again surprised by developments that could easily and most likely were predicted by CENTCOM or the intel agencies. I mean, we've only had a direct hand in Iraq for decades, but we didn't see this coming. So now we are floundering for solutions and examining "every available option" instead of executing a plan that was already in place. We have a lot of resources dedicated to executing our national security process, what are they doing these days?

Here is a prediction they should start looking at now: Afghanistan will follow the same pattern, we should anticipate and start planning now.
 
#6
#6
We get it. You hate Obama and blame it all on him, regardless of the facts. If you want to blame someone, blame this rattlesnake of a human being:

Dick_cheney.jpg
 
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#7
#7
YorkVol said:
Here is a prediction they should start looking at now: Afghanistan will follow the same pattern, we should anticipate and start planning now.
Click to expand...

I think the fall of the Afghanistan government was pretty much etched in stone when it became clear that NATO wasn't going to be hanging out there indefinitely.

Nation building in the Muslim world requires more William the Conqueror and less George Marshall, not that we'll ever comprehend that.
 
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#8
#8
YorkVol said:
We are asking them for help. Set aside the fact that it is a slap in the face of all the men and women who died or were maimed by Iranian IEDs, this truly shows a distinct lack of strategic thought at our highest levels.

On the one hand, we've spent the last decade actively (and rightfully, imo) countering everything the Iranians have done to gain regional hegemony. We've demonized them in the media, acted directly or indirectly against their nuclear programs, placed trade embargoes against their oil and gas industries, etc, etc.

And now we are going to engage them in talks? To what end and with what expectation of success? Will we be surprised when they ask for the moon? Probably. What will it take for them to consider helping us? A couple of hundred pounds of refined uranium? Come on this option is neither feasible nor acceptable.

On the other hand, we are once again surprised by developments that could easily and most likely were predicted by CENTCOM or the intel agencies. I mean, we've only had a direct hand in Iraq for decades, but we didn't see this coming. So now we are floundering for solutions and examining "every available option" instead of executing a plan that was already in place. We have a lot of resources dedicated to executing our national security process, what are they doing these days?

Here is a prediction they should start looking at now: Afghanistan will follow the same pattern, we should anticipate and start planning now.
Click to expand...

Nah. It was clearly stated in the article that Obama wasn't considering a team approach. All the rest of what you wrote is speculation and conjecture at best. You seem to be under some impression that the U.S. can wave a magic wand and make everything turn out how "we" want. History should tell you that the middle east is a little more complex.

If your goal is to assert that the foreign policy decisions that the government have made for the last 20 years in the middle east have failed, you'll get no argument from me. Realistically however, the enemy of our enemy is our friend. If Iran wants to send in its troops to kill ISIS militants, I say the more the merrier.

Edit: spelingz
 
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#9
#9
lawgator1 said:
We get it. You hate Obama and blame it all on him, regardless of the facts. If you want to blame someone, blame this rattlesnake of a human being:

Dick_cheney.jpg
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Little defensive, no? YV didn't mention your messiah once. And those ISIS rebels are using US provided ATGM's on videos. Presumably the ones we delivered to the Syrian "Freedom Fighters".

But that's got nothing to do with the thread.
 
#10
#10
Toujours Pret said:
Little defensive, no? YV didn't mention your messiah once. And those ISIS rebels are using US provided ATGM's on videos. Presumably the ones we delivered to the Syrian "Freedom Fighters".

But that's got nothing to do with the thread.
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I'm not defensive. I just want people to remember/understand that every single suck-ass option available to the United States, at every juncture of this mess, has been directly caused by a combination of the incompetence of Bush and the evil of Cheney.
 
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#11
#11
lawgator1 said:
I'm not defensive. I just want people to remember/understand that every single suck-ass option available to the United States, at every juncture of this mess, has been directly caused by a combination of the incompetence of Bush and the evil of Cheney.
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Just who's been POTUS the last 4 1/2 years? Was Iraq relatively stable in 2009?

And BTW, wasn't Obama supposed to fix all of the GW f-ups and restore us to an international leader?
 
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#12
#12
lawgator1 said:
I'm not defensive. I just want people to remember/understand that every single suck-ass option available to the United States, at every juncture of this mess, has been directly caused by a combination of the incompetence of Bush and the evil of Cheney.
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Incompetence has now extended well beyond the Bush years LG. The amateurish mistakes and decisions of the Obama admin have made this even more difficult along with much of the rest of his foreign and domestic policy. But you somehow extrapolate that any criticism of BO is an outright declaration that it's ALL his fault. Very few have said that. Having said that, anyone with a brain knew these events in Iraq were going to happen sooner rather than later after we pulled out simply due to the long standing ethnic and religious tensions along with the penchant for corruption in Middle East power grabs that will always plague that region. Like a lot of people, I never thought we should have been there in the first place.
 
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#13
#13
Vol737 said:
Incompetence has now extended well beyond the Bush years LG. The amateurish mistakes and decisions of the Obama admin have made this even more difficult along with much of the rest of his foreign and domestic policy. But you somehow extrapolate that any criticism of BO is an outright declaration that it's ALL his fault. Very few have said that. Having said that, anyone with a brain knew these events in Iraq were going to happen sooner rather than later after we pulled out simply due to the long standing ethnic and religious tensions along with the penchant for corruption in Middle East power grabs that will always plague that region. Like a lot of people, I never thought we should have been there in the first place.
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There were no good options available to Obama. Every decision he could have made differently would inevitably result in the same mess, maybe just in a slightly different form, than we have now. Nothing would stop this.

The wheels on this were set in motion by Cheney, with Bush not having the first damn clue what was going on, and really not caring. This is all, absolutely, without question, and not subject to any reasonable debate whatsoever, a direct result of that buffoonery to go in there after 9/11.
 
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#15
#15
lawgator1 said:
I'm not defensive. I just want people to remember/understand that every single suck-ass option available to the United States, at every juncture of this mess, has been directly caused by a combination of the incompetence of Bush and the evil of Cheney.
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Your lack of understanding in the Middle East is yet another on the list of "crap LG just can't get."

This started before Bush and Cheney ever got into office. This started before Clinton and Bush Sr. were in office. This all started in the 80s so to lay blame at Bush isn't accurate at all. We made it a plan to counter Iranian expansion and influence in the region long ago, during the 80s to be exact. We played both sides in the Iran-Iraq war, but gave a lot more support to Iraq at the time. Eventually, peace is achieved and Iran pulls back their regional ambitions to regroup and rebuild their nation. Iraq is actually far better off since it's not a theocracy and hasn't supported terrorism on a major scale like Iran had. Anyway, Saddam doesn't want to pay off the war debt to Kuwait, so they invade. I guess that's an easy way of not having to pay off your loan, take over the bank, but anyway. We put Iraq in position to be the major power in the Middle East by taking Iran out of the picture through our actions in the 1980s.

The world says "no, can't do that" and we have Desert Storm. Which basically puts Iraq on parity with Iran in terms of regional influence and military strength. Saddam goes after the Kurds and Shiites and we now have Southern and Northern Watch which lasts over a decade. And during that time, the focus is on Iraq while Iran is moving behind the scenes in rebuilding its military as well as attempting to expand influence. And funny that even after 2001, we worked with Iran briefly during the initial stages of OEF to help remove the Taliban in Afghanistan. Anyway, 2003 comes along and we finish what we started in 1991. Iran now sees the opportunity to gain more influence in Iraq, especially seeing it has a majority Shiite population, and starts doing things behind the scenes. And we counter the insurgency that was largely fueled by Sunni insurgents being armed by Iran.

Yes, I know this for a fact.

So long term, whether we took Saddam out of power or not doesn't matter as eventually it was going to happen. And Iran would have made a move then. We merely provided the environment for them to flourish in Iraq. I think eventually they would have taken Saddam out themselves and no matter who was next in line for power, there would have been a civil war. The Shiites would have risen up as well as the Kurds and we'd still have Iran attempting to influence things behind the scenes.

So this nonsense that I see from people on here claiming it was "All Bush's fault!" is pure and utter ignorance. The key here isn't Bush or Cheney, it's Iran. It's always been Iran and always will be Iran. And even if we were to change history in Iraq and we never invaded, Iran would still have been working behind the scenes to undermine the government there and supporting a Shiite uprising. And the mess that would have ensued would have made the civil war in Syria look like a powder puff football game.

So please attempt to educate yourself on the big picture here and stop the "Bush's fault!" nonsense. This was set in motion long before he came into office.
 
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#16
#16
lawgator1 said:
So we should STILL be there?

You idiot.
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Obama is an idiot that's in stuff way over his head w/the skills of a community organizer that can't put 2 & 2 together & it shows from his lack of desire to lead the U.S. He's had years to put things in order & it shows he has no clue about how to run a country.
 
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#17
#17
lawgator1 said:
there were no good options available to obama. Every decision he could have made differently would inevitably result in the same mess, maybe just in a slightly different form, than we have now. Nothing would stop this.

The wheels on this were set in motion by cheney, with bush not having the first damn clue what was going on, and really not caring. this is all, absolutely, without question, and not subject to any reasonable debate whatsoever, a direct result of that buffoonery to go in there after 9/11...as well as announcing to the world our intentions and the timeline for executing said intentions so that our enemy will be able to strategically plan their course of action.
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fyp
 
#18
#18
I agree that the ME was a mess before Iraq. I agree it would be a mess even if we had not gone in.

However, the current criticism of Obama from the GOP is just unbelievable since it was the invasion of Iraq that created the current circumstances of how the Sunni-Shia problem is manifesting itself.

Yes, that split has existed for centuries and is at the heart of 90 % of the problems in the internal politics of the ME. But when we went in there in 2003-2005 timeframe in particular and were perceived as openly siding with a Shia majority, we basically guaranteed that the Sunnis would embark on exactly this path.

Had we stayed there longer, which the dumbass GOP commentators I saw on tv this week seem to think was the easy solution, all that would have happened is that we'd have delayed it a little bit more. And at a cost of more American troops and more money.

We would not have won. There is no winning for us there. Staying there, making deals, aligning ourselves with one side or the other, is just a quagmire made worse and worse and worse every time we try to sort it out for them.
 
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#19
#19
Toujours Pret said:
I think the fall of the Afghanistan government was pretty much etched in stone when it became clear that NATO wasn't going to be hanging out there indefinitely.

Nation building in the Muslim world requires more William the Conqueror and less George Marshall, not that we'll ever comprehend that.
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Toss in a little Charles Martel as well.
 
#20
#20
lawgator1 said:
I agree that the ME was a mess before Iraq. I agree it would be a mess even if we had not gone in.
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So why fall back of the idiotic "BUSH'S FAULT!" each and every time? I see you provided your moronic reasoning below...

lawgator1 said:
However, the current criticism of Obama from the GOP is just unbelievable since it was the invasion of Iraq that created the current circumstances of how the Sunni-Shia problem is manifesting itself.
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Apparently you can't deduct simple reasoning from my post. Shall I spell it out in detail and give you a "Middle East Politics 101" class today?

lawgator1 said:
Yes, that split has existed for centuries and is at the heart of 90 % of the problems in the internal politics of the ME. But when we went in there in 2003-2005 timeframe in particular and were perceived as openly siding with a Shia majority, we basically guaranteed that the Sunnis would embark on exactly this path.
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I'm not sure if you even read everything in my post...

The fact that the Sunni minority was ruling the Shia majority is a key factor here. Not dealing with the majority of the population would be like someone invading the US and only dealing with anyone who was Baptist and ignoring everyone else.

lawgator1 said:
Had we stayed there longer, which the dumbass GOP commentators I saw on tv this week seem to think was the easy solution, all that would have happened is that we'd have delayed it a little bit more. And at a cost of more American troops and more money.
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I think it certainly would have given Iraq more time to fully prepare their forces under our guidance. They were taking over their own security operations as early as 2007, but in our rush to get out under Obama without a SOFA in place meant we left them half trained and ill equipped to deal with what we are seeing now.

lawgator1 said:
We would not have won. There is no winning for us there. Staying there, making deals, aligning ourselves with one side or the other, is just a quagmire made worse and worse and worse every time we try to sort it out for them.
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They need to sort it out themselves. But at the same time, having a nation like us at their backs instead of Iran, who is probably playing both sides of this right now, puts us in a far better position once this is all said and done. It's far better to deal with the devil we know instead of the one that's mud stomping the Iraqi forces right now.
 
#21
#21
Toujours Pret said:
I think the fall of the Afghanistan government was pretty much etched in stone when it became clear that NATO wasn't going to be hanging out there indefinitely.

Nation building in the Muslim world requires more William the Conqueror and less George Marshall, not that we'll ever comprehend that.
Click to expand...

If Afghanistan isn't fighting an invader, they are fighting each other. Been going on for 3000 years and I fail to see why we thought it would be any different when we arrived.
 
#23
#23
Everyone who has been to Iraq raise your hand. :salute:

Everyone in favor of letting them kill each other raise your hand. :good!:

Iraq was a dumb war and we lost a lot of good people because of it. The ONLY silver lining I can think of is endless civil war.

Those people deserve to reap what they sow a thousand times over.
 
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#25
#25
lawgator1 said:
Ok Grand, what, EXACTLY should Obama have done differently to prevent this?
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EXACTLY should have been done?

Stop tripping over himself to get us out for one. Sure, the groundwork was laid before he came into office, but not a wholesale removal of us from that nation until they were ready to take over fully and be able to defeat threats like what we are seeing now. A SOFA in place for an extended mission of helping train, equip and teach the Iraqi forces. And far better assistance in defeating said threats as they came long.

He's a failure on the international stage seen time and time again. Why can't you understand this?
 
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